Bystander (Deluxe Digital Edition)

by Johanna Samuels

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Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
First pressing on "dusty sunset" vinyl. Limited to 1000 copies.
Includes 11x22 gatefold poster with lyrics, credits and additional artwork from Pear Juice Productions/

Includes unlimited streaming of Bystander (Deluxe Digital Edition) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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edition of 1000

Purchasable with gift card

$23 USD or more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Highly portable compact disc edition in a cardboard wallet with an 8 page lyric insert.

Includes unlimited streaming of Bystander (Deluxe Digital Edition) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 5 days

Purchasable with gift card

$15 USD or more
Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

$9 USD or more

1.	Ugly On The Inside 03:01 video		buy track
2.	Golden Gate 04:05 video		buy track
3.	Holy Mothers 04:37 video		buy track
4.	The Rest Of Us 03:43 video		buy track
5.	Phil Spector Is Dead 02:53		buy track
6.	Valentine's Day Is Stupid 03:12		buy track
7.	Little Buckets 04:00		buy track
8.	Any Good 03:35		buy track
9.	Song For Molly Parden (Happy Birthday Darling) 02:55		buy track
10.	Tampa 04:10		buy track
11.	Inside Girl 03:23		buy track
12.	Song For Molly Parden (Los Angeles Sessions) - BONUS TRACK 04:08	info	buy track
13.	Love and Mercy (Bathroom Recording) - BONUS TRACK 03:43		buy track
14.	Ugly on the Inside (Los Angeles Sessions) - BONUS TRACK 03:40		buy track
15.	Valentine’s Day is Stupid (Feb. 14th, 2021 Demo) - BONUS TRACK 02:09		buy track

about

The bonus tracks here are a smattering of recordings from “Bystander” days. There are alternative versions of “Song for Molly Parden” & “Ugly On the Inside” that I’d recorded with Sean O’Brien, Sam Kaufman Skloff, Tyler Cash and Garret Lang in Los Angeles at Knob World. I love them, they capture a transitional moment. The original demo of “Valentine’s Day is Stupid” I wrote in my room for a songwriting seminar led by Buck Meek. The cover of “Love and Mercy” I recorded in my friend’s bathroom in Park Slope. I was attempting to teach it to my bandmates for a show. I don’t even think we ended up playing it! It’s one of my favorite Brian Wilson songs. When I hear all these tracks together I realize I was beginning an exiting chapter of musical independence. I hope you enjoy them!

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The first witnesses to Samuels’ new beginnings fittingly became part of the sound of the album. During her darkest moments, while writing in isolation, her old friends in the band Bonny Light Horseman offered to take her out on tour in early 2020. “They re-contextualized music for me all over again,” she says. Observing a truly kind and compassionate music community brought Samuels out of herself even more. Inspired by conversations with producer Josh Kaufman (The Hold Steady, Bob Weir, Cassandra Jenkins) on the road, Samuels took him up on his offer to produce her new songs and retreated to Isokon Studios in Woodstock, NY in the summer of 2021. They made the album as a duo, with Matt Barick (The Walkmen, Fleet Foxes) contributing drums on the entirety of the record. The result is a sonic template that ranges from the soaring and orchestral to the understated and confessional; at turns free-wheeling and filled with swagger then sincere and precise, with each subtle movement serving to highlight Samuels’ lyrical journeys.

As happens with albums that feel kinetic upon listening, the recording of Bystander with this skeleton crew of trusted friends served to underscore the questions Samuels had set out to answer when she began writing: “I had to ask myself ‘what are my values? What kind of people do I want around?”

In answering them, Samuels illuminates her path out of the wreckage. She doesn’t shy away from where she’s been but more importantly, over the course of these eleven elegiac poems set to a carefully curated symphony of tones, Samuels lets us know where she’s headed. Walking out of a thousand toxic conversations and away from a thousand false illusions, she’s stepping out into the street, with a glass raised for “whoever the fuck is left.” Listeners can count themselves among those being toasted; the lucky ones who get to greet Samuels and hear the tales of her reckoning.

credits

released March 22, 2024

PRODUCED by Josh Kaufman
ENGINEERED, MIXED & MASTERED by D. James Goodwin
RECORDED at The Isokon in Woodstock, NY & The Bat House in Kingston, NY

PLAYERS: Johanna Samuels, Josh Kaufman, Matt Barrick
WITH: Adam Brisbin, Annie Nero, A.O. Gerber, Dan Knishkowy, Madison Cunningham, Phil Krohnengold, Steven Van Betten, Thomas Bartlett

ALBUM ART by Allyson Yarrow Pierce & Pear Juice Productions.

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Johanna Samuels Los Angeles, California

songs 🌼 BIPOC lives matter

'Excelsior!' is out now on Mama Bird Recording Co. (US/World) & Basin Rock (UK/EU).

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